Wildlife in your garden
Wildlife in your garden
One of our biggest passions here at DJA Plants is wildlife and this is probably what has led us to grow plants. Our native wildlife doesn’t need our help, it needs us to help to protect and encourage the natural environment all around us so that it can get on with what it does best and that is survival.
I have always been fascinated by animals and like many people put a lot of focus and emphasis on how we can save and protect our native, birds, bees, mammals and amphibians. However the simple truth is that they don’t need us to anything more difficult than stop polluting, reduce and reuse what we already have and to generally care for the environment (plants) that surround us and them. Domestic Gardens make up some of the largest expanses of green space in the UK and if we simply make them inviting the wildlife, it will come and it will thrive. When we moved in to our current home 5 years ago it was a square patch of grass with a few overgrown shrubs and paving stones all around. There was a little wildlife here and there but the garden was mostly devoid of life and movement. Over the years we dug out wide boarders and filled them full of flowering shrubs and beneficial plants such as Mahonia, Cornus, Verbena, Echium and Ivy. I wanted full borders with large and colourful herbaceous plants such as Alliums, Primrose, Echinacea, Rudbeckia, Foxglove, Cosmos and so many more. This type of planting does come with some pitfalls for the wildlife, because it mostly dies back in the winter, so I make up for this by trying to ensure that there is always something in flower, plenty of evergreen shrubs and leaving dried stalks of the herbaceous plants up until well into spring. Now all year round our garden is abound with life buzzing, hopping and chirping away and although it is a busy and bustling space it is one of the most relaxing places I can be in.
One of our biggest passions here at DJA Plants is wildlife and this is probably what has led us to grow plants. Our native wildlife doesn’t need our help, it needs us to help to protect and encourage the natural environment all around us so that it can get on with what it does best and that is survival.
I have always been fascinated by animals and like many people put a lot of focus and emphasis on how we can save and protect our native, birds, bees, mammals and amphibians. However the simple truth is that they don’t need us to anything more difficult than stop polluting, reduce and reuse what we already have and to generally care for the environment (plants) that surround us and them. Domestic Gardens make up some of the largest expanses of green space in the UK and if we simply make them inviting the wildlife, it will come and it will thrive. When we moved in to our current home 5 years ago it was a square patch of grass with a few overgrown shrubs and paving stones all around. There was a little wildlife here and there but the garden was mostly devoid of life and movement. Over the years we dug out wide boarders and filled them full of flowering shrubs and beneficial plants such as Mahonia, Cornus, Verbena, Echium and Ivy. I wanted full borders with large and colourful herbaceous plants such as Alliums, Primrose, Echinacea, Rudbeckia, Foxglove, Cosmos and so many more. This type of planting does come with some pitfalls for the wildlife, because it mostly dies back in the winter, so I make up for this by trying to ensure that there is always something in flower, plenty of evergreen shrubs and leaving dried stalks of the herbaceous plants up until well into spring. Now all year round our garden is abound with life buzzing, hopping and chirping away and although it is a busy and bustling space it is one of the most relaxing places I can be in.
If you want to delve deeper how to create a wildlife friendly garden why not get a copy of our Gardening for Wildlife Guide
or
send us a message and have a chat with us about how we can help you to make your garden a more inviting space for nature.
Growing Indoors
Growing Indoors
Sometimes its hard to know where to place your new plant and sometimes you know exactly where you want a plant but struggle to find the right plant for that spot. Lets see if we can find a solution to help.
The basic facts are that your plants will need appropriate lighting in order to grow. So how do you know what that is the right amount of light? In todays age of internet searches it is so easy to find out how to care for your plant if you know what its botanical name is. As great as common names are they can be misleading and confusing as they often refer to more than one species of plant whose care could be vastly different. With the botanical name you will usually find that someone has written a concise care guide. I recommend that you read a few different guides to ensure that the advice you have discovered is sound and correct. It is also a good idea to take a look at where the plant grows naturally and what conditions it normally lives in this will give you an indication of what you need to provide.
You might be surprised to know that not all cactus enjoy or can tolerate full sun and some prefer to grow with a little protection from the harsh mid day sun to stop them from being burnt by the suns strongest rays especially if placed against a window. That said many cactus will become etiolated (grow tall and thin) if they do not get enough direct sunlight. I personally like to grow most of my cactus in a greenhouse that I heat to 6c in the winter, however there are some cactus that will not tolerate this cold so I grow those on my windowsill all year round and there is no reason why you couldn’t too. You could even give them a little holiday out into the garden over summer if you wanted too. One thing to consider is that cactus do like air movement so will love it if you open a window on those hot sunny days, this will also help to prevent them from getting burnt (Don’t forget to close the window when you leave the house though, your cactus don’t want to you to get burgled because of them). It’s also worth following my guidelines on watering your cactus over winter. I personally don’t water the cactus I keep in the house even though the temperature of the house is warmer. By keeping you cactus dry over winter they will be forced into dormancy and stop growing. This is important because as the day length shortens your cactus won’t receive enough light to grow properly.
What if you want to grow your cactus on a shelf or a table in the middle of the room, Is their enough light for it to grow? The easy answer is No, there isn’t. It will survive but it will turn a pale green and become etiolated. Because cactus grow so slowly this may take a year or more for you to notice. You can have your cactus in the middle of the room but you have 3 options.
Option 1: Grow it until it becomes distorted then throw it away and replace it with a new one. This is not an option that I support at all and it upsets me a little to think that people would treat their plants with such disregard as to just throw them away. Options 2 and 3 are my preferred.
Option 2: Grow it on your sunniest window. Now don’t become to complacent here and think any old window will do! I have grown cactus on a windowsill and it still became etiolated because it wasn’t getting enough light. It was however a tiny windowsill and surrounded by other things. I could have helped it’s chances if the window had been wider, letting in more sunlight.
Option 3: If you really want to grow your cactus and succulents on a shelf or table you can either move them to the window during the daytime when you are out at work and put them back in their desired spot when you get home from work but if you’re anything like me that feels like a faff. I would suggest you invest in some really good quality grow lights. I say invest because they are not cheep and whilst I have personally never used them I do know that you need to provide the right spectrum of light for them to be effective. Here at DJA Plants we hope to experiment with this over the next year or so in order to give you some actual feedback about what we have found to work and not work but we may need to feedback on something a little faster growing than a cactus in the short term.
I hope this has helped you to consider where you can grow your new cactus to ensure that it has a long and healthy life and grows with you for years to come.
* Please note DJA Plants are based in the UK and advice given is for others who live in similar conditions. The advice may be the same or may need to be altered depending upon local conditions.
Sometimes its hard to know where to place your new plant and sometimes you know exactly where you want a plant but struggle to find the right plant for that spot. Lets see if we can find a solution to help.
The basic facts are that your plants will need appropriate lighting in order to grow. So how do you know what that is the right amount of light? In todays age of internet searches it is so easy to find out how to care for your plant if you know what its botanical name is. As great as common names are they can be misleading and confusing as they often refer to more than one species of plant whose care could be vastly different. With the botanical name you will usually find that someone has written a concise care guide. I recommend that you read a few different guides to ensure that the advice you have discovered is sound and correct. It is also a good idea to take a look at where the plant grows naturally and what conditions it normally lives in this will give you an indication of what you need to provide.
You might be surprised to know that not all cactus enjoy or can tolerate full sun and some prefer to grow with a little protection from the harsh mid day sun to stop them from being burnt by the suns strongest rays especially if placed against a window. That said many cactus will become etiolated (grow tall and thin) if they do not get enough direct sunlight. I personally like to grow most of my cactus in a greenhouse that I heat to 6c in the winter, however there are some cactus that will not tolerate this cold so I grow those on my windowsill all year round and there is no reason why you couldn’t too. You could even give them a little holiday out into the garden over summer if you wanted too. One thing to consider is that cactus do like air movement so will love it if you open a window on those hot sunny days, this will also help to prevent them from getting burnt (Don’t forget to close the window when you leave the house though, your cactus don’t want to you to get burgled because of them). It’s also worth following my guidelines on watering your cactus over winter. I personally don’t water the cactus I keep in the house even though the temperature of the house is warmer. By keeping you cactus dry over winter they will be forced into dormancy and stop growing. This is important because as the day length shortens your cactus won’t receive enough light to grow properly.
What if you want to grow your cactus on a shelf or a table in the middle of the room, Is their enough light for it to grow? The easy answer is No, there isn’t. It will survive but it will turn a pale green and become etiolated. Because cactus grow so slowly this may take a year or more for you to notice. You can have your cactus in the middle of the room but you have 3 options.
Option 1: Grow it until it becomes distorted then throw it away and replace it with a new one. This is not an option that I support at all and it upsets me a little to think that people would treat their plants with such disregard as to just throw them away. Options 2 and 3 are my preferred.
Option 2: Grow it on your sunniest window. Now don’t become to complacent here and think any old window will do! I have grown cactus on a windowsill and it still became etiolated because it wasn’t getting enough light. It was however a tiny windowsill and surrounded by other things. I could have helped it’s chances if the window had been wider, letting in more sunlight.
Option 3: If you really want to grow your cactus and succulents on a shelf or table you can either move them to the window during the daytime when you are out at work and put them back in their desired spot when you get home from work but if you’re anything like me that feels like a faff. I would suggest you invest in some really good quality grow lights. I say invest because they are not cheep and whilst I have personally never used them I do know that you need to provide the right spectrum of light for them to be effective. Here at DJA Plants we hope to experiment with this over the next year or so in order to give you some actual feedback about what we have found to work and not work but we may need to feedback on something a little faster growing than a cactus in the short term.
I hope this has helped you to consider where you can grow your new cactus to ensure that it has a long and healthy life and grows with you for years to come.
* Please note DJA Plants are based in the UK and advice given is for others who live in similar conditions. The advice may be the same or may need to be altered depending upon local conditions.
Cactus Soil Mix
Your new cactus arrived and your wondering what soil mix you should use.
Some of the words you’ll hear a lot of when it comes to cactus mixes are free draining, low organic content and high mineral content.
What does this all mean? Simply put you need to ensure that whatever soil mix you use for your cactus into it doesn’t hold on to water.
There are as many soil mixes as there are cactus growers. Many use John Innes 2 as their organic portion. John Innes is like a recipe containing a mix of organic content (usually made up of peat), sand and minerals such as grit however some manufactures use better quality ingredients than others so if you want to use this type of compost this is something to bear in mind. If you want to help to protect our wonderful planet (we really hope that you do) we don’t recommend using a peat based organic product. Try substituting for a good quality Peat free soil such as Dalefoots seed compost which is made in the Lake District, UK using Herdiwick sheep wool and bracken or Sylvagrow by Melcourt which uses wood bark and fibres, coir and sterilised loam (composted leaves). I would recommend adding at least 25% horticultural or silver sand to these before moving onto your next part of the mix.
The above organic soil/sand mix shouldn’t equal more than 50% of your total mix.
Next, I recommend adding 25% horticultural grit. Some people use chick flint others use a supermarket brand of cat litter (you will need to ask for the most up to date type to buy on the internet) but essentially any kind of small stone-based product.
Finally add 25% perlite. If you don’t have or want to buy perlite simply add 50% horticultural. Perlite is a mineral substance that is mined in many countries and is widely used in the horticultural industry. It is a finite resource so if you can substitute it with an alternative that would be beneficial to the environment.
I have also seen and experimented with growing cactus in pure Mineral substrates such as pumice or volcanic rock and Cactus grow extremely well in these types of substrate so this is a viable option if you are able to purchase it.
Your new cactus arrived and your wondering what soil mix you should use.
Some of the words you’ll hear a lot of when it comes to cactus mixes are free draining, low organic content and high mineral content.
What does this all mean? Simply put you need to ensure that whatever soil mix you use for your cactus into it doesn’t hold on to water.
There are as many soil mixes as there are cactus growers. Many use John Innes 2 as their organic portion. John Innes is like a recipe containing a mix of organic content (usually made up of peat), sand and minerals such as grit however some manufactures use better quality ingredients than others so if you want to use this type of compost this is something to bear in mind. If you want to help to protect our wonderful planet (we really hope that you do) we don’t recommend using a peat based organic product. Try substituting for a good quality Peat free soil such as Dalefoots seed compost which is made in the Lake District, UK using Herdiwick sheep wool and bracken or Sylvagrow by Melcourt which uses wood bark and fibres, coir and sterilised loam (composted leaves). I would recommend adding at least 25% horticultural or silver sand to these before moving onto your next part of the mix.
The above organic soil/sand mix shouldn’t equal more than 50% of your total mix.
Next, I recommend adding 25% horticultural grit. Some people use chick flint others use a supermarket brand of cat litter (you will need to ask for the most up to date type to buy on the internet) but essentially any kind of small stone-based product.
Finally add 25% perlite. If you don’t have or want to buy perlite simply add 50% horticultural. Perlite is a mineral substance that is mined in many countries and is widely used in the horticultural industry. It is a finite resource so if you can substitute it with an alternative that would be beneficial to the environment.
I have also seen and experimented with growing cactus in pure Mineral substrates such as pumice or volcanic rock and Cactus grow extremely well in these types of substrate so this is a viable option if you are able to purchase it.